"A Year to Watch" - December 31, 2021

[Joe Ross]

[Joe Ross]

[pookie]

1960s I SPY
70s MASH
80s AMEN
90s WINGS
00s WEEDS
10s ARROW
HALF AND HALF 50-50
Through the DECADES.
Not even close. (sigh)

[lacangah]

Minor rabbit hole - I saw "Bing" in 11D, and thought it would be "Friends" for a few minutes.

Very happy with the solution - great show, and possibly greatest series finale -

See you all later in the week - cheers,

[MajordomoTom]

Definitely the best finale.

Great meta, great show, great comedian.

[LittleGood]

It took me a while to figure out "Alf," and I needed google for "Arrow" and "Amen"... but on my way to "Amen" I also learned of a show called "Frame", which kept me on the boat most of the weekend. Guess I need to watch more TV!

[escapeartist]

Nope to the nope.

I did have Newhart on my short list of possible answers (Newhart, Friends, & Dynasty), though no hail mary was attempted.

[DrTom]

OK, I have to ask. I am apparently not clever enough to figure out the tie-in to the Meta Title. How does that tie to NEWHART? I mean I can make a scenario where it is a NEW YEAR puzzle and therefore NEW HART but that is VERY loose. I know I am just missing something, can anyone expound?

Additionally, were we to get anything from 75A. I did finally solve but I certainly did not use 75A for anything except to confuse myself.

[Cindy N]

I saw the directions/hint 37 With 38- and 40-Across, coffee lightener (you just need a little of it, in real life and for this contest answer), so I knew I needed half of the long entries. I didn't see the shows at first. I was doing something else and I thought about MASH being in there and then I realized so was WINGS. I listed the shows and the years they were on and tried extracting letters by using the number of years each one ran. Gibberish.

It took a nudge to realize I forgot to apply the rest of Matt's clue "you just need a little of it" to the half I was using.

[Bob cruise director]

The thing that I found less than satisfying was that in 5 of the seven theme answers, there is not one but two TV shows with one letter left

17A has Arrow and Path with the remainder letter N
30A has I Spy and Clouds with the remainder letter W
50A has Justin (which you have to combine with 75A to get Justin Time) and Mash with the remainder A
59A has Beef and Amen with the remainder R
68A has Fine and Weeds with the remainder T

So the answer had to clearly be Newhart but we now get to backsolving for E and H

21A has Wings but then you have THEE and there is no TV show THE
and we have our Half and Half scattered over three answers to get the H

Between these two and 50A, the solution is not as tight as I would have expected.

I had never heard of all but Mash and I Spy but I don't watch TV but I polled my kids and grandkids and they had not heard of most of the others either.

[Al Sisti]

Minor rabbit hole - I saw "Bing" in 11D, and thought it would be "Friends" for a few minutes.

Very happy with the solution - great show, and possibly greatest series finale -

See you all later in the week - cheers,

Absolutely the best series ending ever!

[BEACHEDWHALE]

I got N E W A R T and then I knew I needed to find an H. However in Half and Half I found it in the first Half, not the 2nd Half. But I came up with the same answer.. I never figured out anything about the half and half clue regarding TV show dates or the puzzle TITLE hint regarding "a year to watch", but only came up with the H I was looking for. It just goes to show that you can actually solve these things without really solving all the twists and turns in the creators brain...

Oh yes, I also had my first guess as FRIENDS but I dumped that one quickly since I couldn't make it work.

[MajordomoTom]

OK, I have to ask. I am apparently not clever enough to figure out the tie-in to the Meta Title. How does that tie to NEWHART? I mean I can make a scenario where it is a NEW YEAR puzzle and therefore NEW HART but that is VERY loose. I know I am just missing something, can anyone expound?

Additionally, were we to get anything from 75A. I did finally solve but I certainly did not use 75A for anything except to confuse myself.

I missed the tie in also, awaiting enlightenment.

[steveb]

The thing that I found less than satisfying was that in 5 of the seven theme answers, there is not one but two TV shows with one letter left

17A has Arrow and Path with the remainder letter N
30A has I Spy and Clouds with the remainder letter W
50A has Justin (which you have to combine with 75A to get Justin Time) and Mash with the remainder A
59A has Beef and Amen with the remainder R
68A has Fine and Weeds with the remainder T

So the answer had to clearly be Newhart but we now get to backsolving for E and H

21A has Wings but then you have THEE and there is no TV show THE
and we have our Half and Half scattered over three answers to get the H

Between these two and 50A, the solution is not as tight as I would have expected.

I had never heard of all but Mash and I Spy but I don't watch TV but I polled my kids and grandkids and they had not heard of most of the others either.

The explanation of the solution didn't say this explicitly enough, but each letter of NEWHART is the first letter of one half of the two-word answer, where the rest of that word is a TV show. (N)ARROW, (W)ISPY, (A)MASH, (R)AMEN, and (T)WEEDS all consistently fit that pattern. The H is a little different, but you're still taking the first letter from one HALF.

[BEACHEDWHALE]

OK, I have to ask. I am apparently not clever enough to figure out the tie-in to the Meta Title. How does that tie to NEWHART? I mean I can make a scenario where it is a NEW YEAR puzzle and therefore NEW HART but that is VERY loose. I know I am just missing something, can anyone expound?

Additionally, were we to get anything from 75A. I did finally solve but I certainly did not use 75A for anything except to confuse myself.

As far as I can tell, the Meta Title doesn't relate to the answer. But if I was to venture a guess, it would be that if you actually spent the time trying to find a connection between the show and the puzzle title, you would eventually be so frustrated you would need a New Heart. That's the best I can come up with...

[PQ63]

Honestly, I’m still very lost at sea keeping Isaac very busy. There’s always next week.

[otlaolap]

No way for me. When I was new at this, a year and a half or so ago, there was a a puzzle asking for something parents did not want their kids to do. The answer was "TOO MUCH TV". While pondering this puzzle, and ultimately failing to solve it, I posted a comment that said something like "when we were growing up our family did not watch much tv" and reporting that I had to google to find out who this Isaac person people visited was. Someone else, after midnight Sunday, posted that they nearly spit out their coffee when they read that. Well, in this week's puzzle that same observation is relevant. I have never heard of several of the tv shows that were steps on the path to the solution, so it would have been hopeless to find this from internal resources. Fortunately, sometimes I know I don't know what I don't know and so did not agonize unduly over this puzzle (which is absolutely a valid puzzle, as is my ignorance of the topic). May luck be with you when the draw is made later this morning.

[Ergcat]

The thing that I found less than satisfying was that in 5 of the seven theme answers, there is not one but two TV shows with one letter left

17A has Arrow and Path with the remainder letter N
30A has I Spy and Clouds with the remainder letter W
50A has Justin (which you have to combine with 75A to get Justin Time) and Mash with the remainder A
59A has Beef and Amen with the remainder R
68A has Fine and Weeds with the remainder T

So the answer had to clearly be Newhart but we now get to backsolving for E and H

21A has Wings but then you have THEE and there is no TV show THE
and we have our Half and Half scattered over three answers to get the H

Between these two and 50A, the solution is not as tight as I would have expected.

I had never heard of all but Mash and I Spy but I don't watch TV but I polled my kids and grandkids and they had not heard of most of the others either.

The explanation of the solution didn't say this explicitly enough, but each letter of NEWHART is the first letter of one half of the two-word answer, where the rest of that word is a TV show. (N)ARROW, (W)ISPY, (A)MASH, (R)AMEN, and (T)WEEDS all consistently fit that pattern. The H is a little different, but you're still taking the first letter from one HALF.

(H)Alf….. it fits your pattern. Alf was a TV show. But I, too, don’t see the tie in to the Title or any other clue which would have pointed to using the “letter before the TV Show in the theme answer”! I just saw NEWHART there while staring at the theme answers/ shows. . I would have liked the title or (some other clue) to use a word /phrase like “ looking ahead” “look forward to Next year” “preview” / “previous year” or “start of New Year” etc. Something to point to the letters of NEWHART. I was focused on using the year the tv show aired as indicated by 75a.
Hoping someone can enlighten me!

[TeamDoubleTow]

I got N E W A R T and then I knew I needed to find an H. However in Half and Half I found it in the first Half, not the 2nd Half. But I came up with the same answer.. I never figured out anything about the half and half clue regarding TV show dates or the puzzle TITLE hint regarding "a year to watch", but only came up with the H I was looking for. It just goes to show that you can actually solve these things without really solving all the twists and turns in the creators brain...

Yes, that is the path we took too.

[KayW]

I spent way too much time in the A YEAR TO WATCH / 75A TV TIME rabbit holes. That seemed far too significant to me for it not to matter - it’s the title, after all. Like others, I still don’t see how it connects to the mechanism or the answer.